I haven't been to Iran, but I've met a goodly portion of Iranians in my time in the gulf (Loved this one restaurant in Dubai till some tool got in trouble and it wound up outside the 'go zones'). There is a misconception that everyone in Iran and by inference, all Iranians, hate everything western.

If anything,I think the ruling faction has to build this perception, inside and outside Iran,to ensure control.

I feel like the one mistake that the article makes is that it implies that Iran is not an anti-western/anti-American country. It is. But the people of Iran aren't. The problem is that Iranians aren't in control of their country, but a fanatical minority is.

To tell a story, this one time, an Iranian/Persian friend of mine met another Iranian/Persian who had a pin on his lapel of their country superimposed by the country's current flag. The Iranian with the pin was born in America and was only expressing a cultural sentiment, while my friend was actually from Iran. My friend told the other boy that he was also from Iran but chastised him for the pin, saying, "That has an Iranian flag, not a Persian one." The sentiment seemed to be that by wearing it, he was expressing a sympathy not for the people of Iran, not for the land or its history, but for the government, which was something completely horrible. I feel it's a little anecdote about how a people and their country/government can be completely alienated.

I am curious to see what comes of the next election cycle. I get a bad feeling that it will be more of the same from the last one, but sadly with more bodies. There is a several indicators that the stuff that happened last time around will come back. Mostly I see a clash between the more moderate elements in the cities being even more outspoken.

I feel more or less the same. I fear that it will be more of the same too. I feel that Iran is too large, with too large, powerful, and loyal an army for revolution (peaceful or violent) to succeed. Though, I suppose we all can always hope.

It's amazing how often we assume the official stance of a nation is an exact representation of it's populations opinion. Especially since we almost never agree with our own politicians about anything! Homo Sapiens do the dumbest things. *shakes head*

As far as war, I hope it doesn't go badly, but I guess we'll have too depending on what happens.

Well consider MCsc that the common sight we STILL see of the 'public in Iran' is what the state media lets us see. I figure that the Iranian 'joe on the street' is as tired of his government ignoring him as we are of ours doing the same. They just fear that they will get snatched up and sent off to jail, whereas (till the new National Defense Authorization is passed) we don't have that fear.

Actually I think that's a general Homo Sapien problem more than it is an American one. Sometimes people just do dumb things. Maybe I need to find a better way to do so, but sometimes I think it can be beneficial to point out something people do without thinking about it is kind of dumb. Homo Sapien's are intelligent, but sometimes we get a little ahead of ourselves and forget we have limitations as well. I'm probably guilty of that myself about a hundred thousand times.